My new publication is available from here and in pdf.
It is a paper I co-authored with my thesis supervisor, Theo Farrell, originally commissioned by the UNHCR.
The UNHCR is engaged in a major project to get states to look again at the 1951 Refugee Convention. This is the key international agreement on international protection of refugees. It provides a right of asylum for individuals fleeing persecution but, amazingly, it does not provide any such right for those fleeing armed conflict. The UNHCR wants states to rethink this. Our paper is supposed to provide background for brainy lawyers working on the implications for refugee law.
This paper provides an overview of the whole debate on “new wars”, “civil wars”, “greed v grievance”, etc. and uses six short cases studies to illustrate the effects of war on civilian populations.
The paper will be reprinted as the first chapter of a UNHCR-edited book to be published by Cambridge UP in 2013.
I hope you will find it of interest.
Olivier Schmitt 